This is Ben’s second European title this year after claiming the ASP European title back in August and he currently leads the ETL European tour. If he wins that he will have won all 3 European titles in one year, repeating his feat of 2009 when he became the only person ever to do it.

Here is the full final day review, with Portugal taking out the overall title of European Surfing Champions:

Today saw the culmination of the European Surfing Championships which was held in Bundoran for the past week with Team Portugal being crowned European Surfing Champions for 2011. In an ironic twist, Portugal were also awarded the trophy in 1997, the last time that the event was held in the seaside town.

Thousands of spectators gathered along Bundoran’s Tullan Strand to watch the cream of Europe’s surfers compete for the top spot in each of their divisions. After what has been a very exciting and unpredicitable surfing contest, todays final proved to be no disappointment with Ireland’s Ashleigh Smith coming second in Europe in the womens bodyboarding division. In the nail biting final Ashleigh was narrowly beaten by Portugal’s Catarina Sousa by a mere 0.07, followed closely by Gemma Harris (Wal). However Ashleigh was still happy to claim Ireland’s only medal in the competition – a silver.

After putting in a consistent performance throughout Eurosurf 2011 Ben Skinner (Chi) has emerged as winner of the Longboard Competition after dominating his heat

In the surf seniors Pablo Solar (Spn) and Joncour Thomas (Fra) battled it out for first place with Pablo emerging victorious in a impressive display of surfing.

Sarah Beardmore (Eng) won her heat in by a landslide to become the European Ladies Open Champion. Sarah led from the start, dominating the heat and winning by a 7.0 margin over Leticia Canales (Spn). Disappointly Dejean Marie (Fra) was unable to surf a scorable wave.

Portuguese Paulo Rodrigues was a worthy winner of the Surf Masters, beating neighbour Dani Garcia (Spn) by almost 3 points, followed by Salvaire Olivier (Fra) and Greg Owen (Wal).

In the bodyboard open fellow Portuguese country men Manuel Centeno and Hugo Pinheiro fought for pole position with Manuel taking 1st place and Hugo having to settle for third place, with Guillermo Cobo (Spn) placing second.

Individual medals were awarded to the finalists in each division at Tullan Strand while the overall team prizes were awarded at the contest closing ceremony at the Holyrood Hotel later on Sunday night.

From the very outset of Eurosurf Bundoran France have dominated the competition. In the opening day they scored 8 out of the best 15 waves of the day and 8 of the top 15 overall scores of the day. France remained the competition leaders throughout the contest only to be over taken by Portugal and Spain on the final day of the contest. Portugal won 3 of the 7 different categories, two 2nd places, one 3rd and one 4th. The only category in which Portugal did not place was Longboard. Ireland achieved a very repectable 6th place overall.

Commenting on the event, Contest Director Eileesh Buckley said “Eurosurf as a whole has been an enormous success. We couldn’t have asked for better waves all week and the contest overall has been problem-free. We are indebted to our team of volunteers who have ensured the smooth running of the competition all week and have put in many long days over the past week and a half. We would like to mention our supporters and sponsors at this point too and thank Failte Ireland and Supervalu for their generous support – without whom Eurosurf would not have happened.”

Yet again Bundoran did not disappoint surfers and spectators alike and Tracy Ferguson, Tourism Officer for Bundoran Town Council was keen to agree with this, stating “We are incredibly proud to have hosted the European Surfing Championships in Bundoran – we hope that all 13 nations have had a wonderful time in the Northwest and that internationally that Eurosurf has helped to validate Bundoran and the west coast of Ireland in general as an ideal cold water surfing destination.”

Shane Smyth Eurosurf Press Officer agrees saying “We’ve been delighted with how the week has gone for Eurosurf – if we were to draw up a blueprint for a surf competition considering waves, weather and organisation we would have nailed it. Conditions were perfect and all the teams really had a great time – let’s hope they spread the word about surfing in Ireland and we see them all back here really soon!”